Wait, I Thought I Was Signing Up for a Vacation

So I don't usually post awhole lot about my work, but I had a conversation today with some colleagues that made me feel like I should put into words some of my thoughts on recent events in the diplomatic world. There's been a lot of positive commentary recently on the difficult job of foreign service officers. I guess all it takes is the senseless murder of a few of us for the world to notice that we're not just a bunch of faceless bureaucrats traveling the world on the taxpayer dime! As someone who made the transition to State from the Department of Defense, I feel quite secure saying I felt far safer serving overseas in the military than I do in the Foreign Service. We go into some of the most volatile places in the world at the behest of the American people to represent our country's interests abroad. We work to protect Americans abroad and to promote American interests in the countries we are posted to without the benefit of secure bases or large contingents of armed personnel to protect us. FSOs get deployed to active combat zones just like military personnel with one very big difference - we can't carry guns.

So how do we keep our Foreign Service personnel secure? To be honest, we have to rely on our host countries for most of our protection. There just aren't enough Marines to go around. I can't comment about posts I haven't been to, but I can tell you that hearing things about local protection fleeing their posts and countries that refuse to allow the U.S. to send more Marines in to help protect our people* doesn't exactly give me a warm fuzzy about the situation.

To make matters even worse, there seems to be an awful lot of just flat out acceptance of the situation. I get that there are reasons for people to react in a given way to certain situations, hell you can rationalize away just about anything, but the idea that the reasons proffered somehow excuse the use of violence against innocent people is acceptable is just completely unfathomable to me. I cannot comprehend how anyone could ever accept this kind of behavior.

I won't go into specifics about how I feel about our government's response to the events occurring around the world, but I can at least say that I think we've not done nearly enough to express our outrage and work towards protecting our people abroad. I hope these events at least spark a larger conversation about the contributions of our brave men and women out of uniform, and that the tragic loss of our colleagues in Benghazi means a greater recognition of the amazing work done every day by the incredibly dedicated people of the State Dept.

My heart breaks for the families of Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods. They gave their lives in service of our great country, and their sacrifice is not forgotten.

*cough, cough* Sudan *cough*